Vol. 1, Ch. 62: Questionable Ethics
Kalloway looked perplexed at her question. “Why those two? A lot of people don’t like to talk about corruption…considering…”
“Considering a student turned on their peers, four years ago?” she asked. He opened his mouth to speak, but she continued before he could interrupt. “How did Felix Fenrir get corrupted so badly, yet no one noticed?”
He winced. “You know about him, huh?”
“Did Resalio tell you the details of how I got here? Who I ran into?” He shook his head. “Felix was within a few days' ride of here when he tried to destroy Bregin. He fled when we managed to kill off his pack. During that confrontation, I got a warning about a corruption attempt. It failed.”
His eyes widened. “Cassia, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. Please tell me exactly what happened. I presume this is part of your witch training you wish to pursue?”
“I need to know about a witch’s investigative powers. I understand that the interface doesn’t always spell out everything for abilities or classes, and some things are unlocked through self-discovery. I will speak here in confidence, since none of my other peers are here. First, I need to know what corruption is. I’ve only heard anecdotal tales that those who are corrupted turn to the side of the Varadur."
Kalloway tapped on the edge of his desk for several seconds. “This is honestly a question for Professor Serkin. He knows souls best, and we think it’s tied to that.” He pulled open a desk drawer and removed a weathered journal, pages warped from water damage and yellowed with age. He pulled it open and thumbed through the pages. “But, I can give you a high-level summary. But I’ll need some context from you.”
“Let’s just say fortifying my mind is one goal. Another goal is to forge another ability to combat the Varadur. If my theory holds.”
“Then I’ll keep it brief. First off, what do you know of the exact process for creating an Awakened?”
“Nothing but unsettling thoughts,” she answered.
“Monster young, either in the egg or just birthed, have a certain vulnerability that we exploited. Before the events in Arivol, there had been efforts to preserve souls after passing. A life after death, in a way. We’d conducted our own research here in Rivilat to pull a soul from a dying body and give it substance inside an inert mana core. The ‘core’ I refer to is intrinsic to most, if not all, magical beasts and humanoids. It's like the outer crust, a vessel for a soul. Even when a creature expires, the soul leaves behind an outer shell. Sometimes, it takes a physical shape, if sufficiently strong.”
He showed a schematic of a roughly spheroid object, with flickering energy wrapped around it in an outer orbit. “The shell is filled with mana energy, accumulated from a lifetime of buildup. It’s sort of a natural by-product of the soul simply existing and exerting itself in the world. You can find mana in the minerals of the earth in some places, but it’s of the non-organic variety. It’s different in many regards and lends itself to Artifact construction. But the organic shells, well, no one knew quite what to do with them for a long time. It wasn’t until people realized the cores could be used to strengthen themselves that they started becoming important.”
He showed another schematic of a ritual. This one depicted a person holding a core in their hands, with small lines indicating a radiance to the object. “This allowed us to break past the tier three barrier. Before that, everyone thought humanity, or all humanoids, had reached their apex. And can you guess where this research happened?”
“Arivol.”
“Correct. We were able to breach two different tiers with this process, up to Tier five. Tier five was recent. Within the last hundred years. It was a monumental discovery…and could have destroyed the empire of Arivol, if they had been less cautious.”
“But they did destroy themselves,” she corrected.
“Not at first. To cut out a long, sordid history, Lachmir murdered thousands to create what we think was another Divine Beast. We're still not entirely certain what the outcome was, except that we now have the Varadur, converting native species into monsters with the evolutionary abilities they are known for.”
Neska leaned in. “So, where do monster young come into this? Or the use of the cores?”
He frowned. “There was…a learning curve. We’d learned to preserve souls, to keep them from dissipating by using empty core shells. At least we think we did. There were many unknowns since it wasn't fully researched. When the Varadur started marching south and east, every nation made efforts to find effective counters to battle them. Those were troubled times, and many rather...unpleasant proposals were attempted."
"Didn't go well?" Neska asked.
"No. Not until someone tried something untested."
"Let me guess: the first Awakened."
"Yes. Someone decided that truly extraordinary measures were necessary. They performed experiments with captured monster young, based on a hypothesis they had built over time. A soul and its shell are fragile early on, but very importantly, can be removed, yet the creature would live, its body seemingly adapting. A new soul core started to form to replace it, if a small seed is left.”
“Is this like…transplanting broken branches, planting them into the ground to make new trees?” she asked, confused.
He nodded. “Good analogy. This was part of the initial study of the Varadur. We wanted to understand their evolutionary power and use it for ourselves. But we never could get it to work; we couldn’t absorb the cores to gain new powers. We could only enhance our own Classes by unlocking higher Tiers and reinforcing our cores.
“Then, someone had the maddening idea of dissecting a monster, taking the core, and putting a preserved soul inside them, merging with the seedling soul still within the monster.” A tremor shook his body, as if the thought abhorred him. “That is how we make Awakened. Through ritual work and careful operation of the monster soul, and preserving the soul of a dying humanoid. The soul merges and absorbs the monster soul, becoming an amalgamate, but still humanoid in mind.”
She tried not to think about the horror this series of actions involved. Taking a defenseless baby monster, cutting them open, removing their soul, removing everything that made their identity, and replacing it with a humanoid one. “This couldn’t have been easy to do.”
“It wasn’t. But the Interface still worked. There were…considerable failures early on, before others perfected the process.” She did not like the implication that people died on the table, with no hope of survival, or that they were transplanted into a monster’s body, without success.
“But, the monsters–we kill their souls. How does that make us any better than them?”
He exhaled through gritted teeth. “Cassia, naive thoughts like that are what make us hesitate to do what is necessary. To do what we need to, for our survival.”
“I still get to question the ethical and moral bankruptcy used to save my life. And countless thousands of others.” She wondered if she knew the cost of this before.
She must have. And did it anyway, likely giving her last request to Risha herself. “It’s inhumane.” The words were sour in her mouth, as though she were lying to herself. “I don’t regret being alive, but what we do to survive…was this really the only way? To become butchers of defenseless monsters?”
"They would kill us, if given an opportunity."
"That is not true. Not all the Varadur are predators." Her mind instantly locked onto Juni: were there Varadur who simply did not have the urge to kill? Or were they merely there to provide food for when there weren't enough humanoids to eat?
"Well...you're not entirely wrong. Some are passive, in a way. At any rate, the soul takes root within the Varadur body, with most of their memories preserved. Classes do not carry over, unfortunately. Except in your case.”
“I still don’t know why, yet. What Risha likely did was research she kept in hiding, either because she feared what others could do with it, or to avoid tipping off the Varadur.” She leaned her upper body back, assimilating this new information.
It was abhorrent. They did kidnap monster young to use their bodies as weapons. “What about the remnant of the monster soul?”
“Ground down for mana. It's difficult to find monster specimens young enough to perform the procedure successfully. It requires alignment of having the right monster, the right resources, and a dying humanoid, at the right time.”
“And who does this procedure?” she asked, narrowing in on what she suspected to be one of the architects of this parade of horrors.
“Myself. Several other staff members. I won’t make apologies for what I’ve done to save lives. And I don’t think anyone has the right to question my motivations. I want humanity to survive.”
She chose to let it slide. Getting more information would take time and trust. Hopefully, she hadn’t broken that with her questioning. “So I understand now how an Awakened is made. But, who chooses to have their soul preserved in this way?”
“Many students, before they leave the academy–uh, humanoid, I mean–will typically give us a waiver, or the armed forces of Valos and Juiksen will keep records of volunteers. Should anyone be killed in battle, there is a small window to extract their soul into an empty shell safely and reasonably intact. Ideally, the person is…”
He trailed off, and his face scrunched, as if shamed. “The optimal results are if the person is still alive when their core is extracted.”
She felt sick to her stomach. “You do this when they’re still alive?”
“Myself, no. I…can’t say the same of others. There’s a certain level of intimacy in that small act of ending one life to preserve the soul. Some question when ‘death’ occurs–when the soul dissipates, or the body expires.” He ignored her unwavering glare. “Who do you think does this? Some army medic? No, this requires expertise and precision, Cassia. It is not an easy procedure, from an ethical or a technical perspective. The witch class is instrumental in this effort.”
“So you’ve done this before.”
“Many times,” he waved to a small collection of photos on the wall. “I have brought back to life one hundred and fifteen individuals that would have died or had already expired from the physical standpoint. It never gets easier. I keep asking myself when the last one will be. And I still don’t have a glimpse of a day when I can rest easy, knowing I don’t have to do this anymore.”
She glanced at the wall. She couldn’t look all those students in the eye, knowing some of them had died twice by now, most likely. It was a grim montage of death, a memento mori for himself to never forget what he did.
Or why. One photo was on his desk, and she didn’t dare to ask whose it was. She wanted to change this conversation, urgently, because she’d learned more than she ever wanted to, even though she’d suspected a lot of it for a while.
“So how does corruption relate?”
“Do you remember that soul seed I talked about? A remnant of the Varadur’s soul? Well, turns out, the Varadur didn’t take kindly to us taking their young, putting humanoid souls into them, and turning the tables against them. The Awakened might be the only reason we’ve held out so well, and made small gains in pushing the monsters back.” He steepled his fingers together. “So, about ten years ago, we started getting reports of some Awakened with headaches, night terrors, things like that. No explanation, no rationale.”
“But something was wrong, wasn’t it?”
“Correct. A few abandoned their posts, joined the Varadur. Some were violent on their exit from the forces of humanoids, resulting in lost lives. Others…festered deep in our backlines, with acts of sabotage and murders that ran unexplained for months until we deduced the Awakened were the ones causing these deaths. We lost many high-profile individuals to this treachery. Some were critical to the war effort, and their loss hurt.
“We found out why from a few we managed to keep alive. They’d been corrupted by the Varadur, and their minds had been almost reprogrammed. They’d viewed humanity as the abhorrent ones, and that monsters were merely trying to survive, carve out a niche for themselves. Some fully believed that humanity was the bigger monster.”
“And how did they get corrupted?”
“By influential monsters in the ranks of the Varadur. We think it has something to do with the Interface, and the fact that there is still a fragment of a monster’s soul inside the Awakened. It hurt, losing good students and allies to their influence. It's part of Harvine’s efforts to weed out those susceptible to their influence, along with a few others. We have started corruption training as part of our ongoing efforts.”
“But, what causes it?”
“Constant, low-level exposure to a psionic influence that we know little about. Some Varadur have this special ability, but it’s hard to determine which ones. We were able to track the corruption once we identified individuals who had the previous symptoms, along with emotional instability, after we realized patterns in behavior were indicators. But the number of the more powerful influencers is few, fortunately.”
Her examination of the wall of photos, if brief, had resulted in one thing missing: a certain Awakened. Felix. It was possible that he wasn’t one of the hundred and fifteen, but the way he talked earlier, he knew of him.
“After what you people did to Felix? I’m not surprised he turned.” She narrowed her eyes, watching his muted reaction, no more than a twitch of his left hand. “You drove him to them. You denied him death and stuffed him in a monster, taking his choices from him. If anything? He willingly joined them.”
“Felix was an aberration that we have since accounted for,” he answered in a rising tone, not even addressing how he was forcibly resurrected. Why did his answer feel so angry? “We’ve since found methods to counteract that, with psychology and alchemical protections. Thistle has perfected some formulas that prevent the influence from taking root. Serkin has also been able to apply soul therapy to cleanse some of them.
“And can all of them be ‘cured’ of this influence?” she asked pointedly. He didn’t answer, but instead kept his gaze on the photo on his desk. “What happens if you can’t ‘cure’ them of that influence? It’s not mind control, is it? They have to have some reservation, some doubt, about this whole effort. An entrenched bitterness or hatred of their situation. Free will still exists, doesn’t it?”
“It…does…” Why was his answer lacking such force?
“What happens to those you can’t cure?”
She knew she was going to get a disappointing answer when he focused on her with all his attention. “You can’t save them all, Cassia.”
“What if we could, though?”
“I’d say you’re on a fool’s errand. But you don’t have the look of someone foolish…” he furrowed his brow, rubbing his chin. “You never answered the why of this query.”
“Because I think this whole battle hinges on understanding corruption. I think part of Risha’s plan was to not only undo corruption but to purge the influence of whatever directs them." Internally, she hoped that if this went well enough, her efforts would give them a chance at making their own choices. That meant diving deep into understanding the world, the Interface, and the magic that drives the Varadur. Something a witch would be suited for.
He laughed. “Cassia, I applaud your boldness, but you think we haven’t been trying for twenty years? It’s not as if we haven’t hit several dead ends already. You can’t cut out the Interface. Not that way.” Then the thought hit him. “What were you saying about resistance, before?”
“Not resistance. Soul resistance. A hidden attribute.” She watched his expression turn from confusion to marked interest.
“Risha theorized about this. But it’s just that, theory. Are you saying–”
Time for the leap of faith. Kalloway might not be the ideal person to talk to about this, but she likely needed his help, and she’d need Serkin’s help, too. That was, if the latter of the two wasn’t drinking away his portion of misery. “I have a theory. But, with us doing upcoming field practices, I need more training in reading magic and doing diagnostic rituals first.”
Or, maybe even purge the monsters of the influence that controls them. Give them a chance to make decisions for themselves.
Kalloway nodded. “I get this feeling you’re holding some cards back, as they say. But yes, we could focus on that. Right now, though, I’d need to get some prep work done and gather materials. It’s the weekend tomorrow, we could meet at 10 am?”
“Works for me.” She rose and turned to leave, having at least something of a plan.
Find a corrupter. Capture them. Study them. Find a way to make my resistance apply to others. Or even more boldly, turn them against the Varadur. The spark of the revolution will be one snake who said ‘no’ to the influence of those who wish to dominate or destroy us.
As she reached for the door handle, Kalloway called out. She turned her head as she opened the door. “Yes?”
He relaxed in his chair, folding his hands together. “You know something? Risha had it down to an art. Hers were the most successful. I think…she might have lost only one person, for all the years she did this. And the Awakened under her care? They were the strongest and bravest. Their survival rate is why Gurigea is still alive, teaching. Just with a different body.”
Risha made Gurigea an Awakened? That felt like a small bombshell. She wondered if other professors here, those she hadn’t met yet, were in a similar position.
“Why were Risha’s efforts so successful?” She felt a flush of uncomfortable heat beneath her scales, her mouth parched. She knew what the answer would be. She might not remember in her mind, but her soul did.
“All our work? It originated from her brilliant experiment. But to take such great risks..." He sighed softly. "She'll either be remembered as a madwoman or a savior."
She was halfway down the stairs before that small bombshell registered in her mind, and she clutched the stair railing for support, her body shaking.
I should have known better.